


Brave New World

by dimircharmer



Series: Something more than they were [4]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: 5+1, Blood, Brosca just punches someone right in the face why beat around the bush, Developing Relationship, Dwarf Commoner Origin, F/F, Kissing in the Rain, Religion, Religious Discussion, Romance, The Chantry, Violence, all origins are true, growing and learning, orzammar's a shitty place to grow up, tags will be added as story develops, unlearning coping mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-03
Updated: 2015-09-13
Packaged: 2018-04-07 10:26:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4259850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dimircharmer/pseuds/dimircharmer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What?” Tabris asked, genuinely confused “Never seen a thunderstorm bef-” She came to the realization about halfway through the question. “You’ve never seen a thunderstorm before.”</p><p>“And? Brosca challenged “What if I haven’t?”<br/>***<br/>Or: 5 ways the surface world was (fucking THANKFULLY) different than orzammar, and one time Orzammar was still the (goddamn shit sucking) same.</p><p>Standalone in established universe: All Origins are true.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Weather

                Duncan had warned her about it, but Farra Brosca wasn’t ever sure she’d get used to having the space over her head just keep going and keep going and _keep going_ into the sky and stars and weather. You heard stories, of course, from the surfacers who liked to come and bleed their coin at Tapsters, but the first time Farra saw the sun and sky properly, it floored her, nearly fainted on the steps in the mountain pass. In hindsight, that may have been the bloodloss and the fact she hadn’t had anything solid to eat in nearly three days as much as any romantic poetic response.

                Nearly two months on the surface now, and she hadn’t gotten tired of simply staring at the night sky. (And if there was a pretty girl willing to tell her stories about the stars as she stayed up to stare at them? She wasn’t about to say no, now was she?) This is why, in Redcliffe, waiting for the boat they had sent to the mage’s tower to return, she was at least a little disappointed when the sky started clouding over. The grey wardens and their entourage were packed into the inn on Redcliffe’s hills, on the reasoning that the arl’s palace was still covered in blood and demon ichor (although, frankly, she had slept in worse) and also because there seemed to be no guarantee that knocking the possessed kid out would actually prevent the swarms of the undead from rising and attacking the town again. Tabris, having led the hell out of the militia the night before, used this reasoning to ask for room and board somewhere they would actually be useful if the dead rose again. Cousland had to second the request before the Arlessa listened, but eventually they all ended up in the tavern anyway, at least half convinced that the dead would get up to greet them again before they had a chance to sleep.

                So, when there came a mighty rumble from outside, and Keira Amell shot from nearly asleep to ramrod upright, Farra thought that stuffing the rest of her biscuit in her pocket and drawing a dagger was a perfectly reasonable response. No one else, however, seemed to be reacting to the noise coming from outside. Even the farmers at the bar she wouldn’t trust within three blocks of a fight didn’t seemed the least bit worried. The noise came again, and the only thing Farra could think to compare it to was a tunnel collapsing two districts away. She cautiously sheathed her dagger, and tapped the table in front of Tabris to get her attention. The elf looked up from frowning at a map in front of her to look at Farra.

                “Should I be worried about whatever’s got the mages in a twist?” Farra asked her.

                Tabris swung her gaze around the crowded room, before landing on where Keira Amell had finished waking up her fellow mage recruit, and had evidently convinced her to join her glued to one of the small windows in the wall of the tavern.

                “I dunno.” Tabris said, mouth twisting “Hold on.”

                She straightened up in her chair, and cleared her throat.

                “Amell! Surana!” She called ( _that_ was the other mage’s name, Farra reminded herself) “What’s going on out there?”

                The two mages whipped around guiltily, but Amell was able to school her expression into her crowd-pleasing smile remarkably quickly.

                “Thunderstorm!” She chirped, gesturing out the window. She hesitated for just a split second before starting again, and Farra was damn sure no one else would have been able to catch the stutter in her smile. “Can we watch it from the porch?”

                “Watch… the thunderstorm?” Tabris asked incredulously “From the porch?”

                Surana tugged at Amell’s arm and shot her a concerned look. She looked like she was about to interject when Tabris snorted.

                “Sure. Knock yourselves out.” She said, to the disbelief of the two mages. “You can go out and get wet if you like. Just be dry and ready to go by tomorrow.”

                There was a look of sheer joy and amazement on Amell’s face as she tugged Surana to her feet, practically dragging her outside past a bemused Tabris, and the two of them thundered past Farra’s seat on their way out the door. They stared out after them for a moment, before Farra turned back to look at Tabris.

                “What the ever-loving fuck was that about?” Farra asked her. Tabris shook her head wryly before pushing away from the table.

                “Not a clue.” She said “But I get the feeling that I should keep an eye. Come with?”

                “Why me?” Farra challenged. Tabris blinked at her.

                “You’re right here. Mostly sober, to boot. D’you want to stay?”

                Brosca shrugged, and then drained her tankard to hop off her chair and follow Tabris out of the tavern. The elf had to put her shoulder into the door to get it to open, and nearly the moment she managed to get the door open and the two of them were out of it, the wind slammed it shut again. As Farra took her first steps outside, the sight that met her made her stop dead in her tracks.

                Beyond the two backs of the mages leaning side by side on the railing, massive, swollen heavy clouds gathered ominously over Lake Calenhad. They were dark, nearly as dark as the night sky they were blocking out, and seemed to Farra to be tinged a sickly purple-green. The rain had already started to fall, sheeting off the roof of the porch and occasionally gusting into the covered area itself, but absolutely flooding the town below. Even as she watched, drawing cautiously closer to the railing, the clouds flashed, and a crack of light opened for just a split second along the surface of one of the clouds. Farra was still blinking the afterimages out of her eyes when the rumble hit, rolling in crests and waves of sound. Tabris let out a low whistle beside her.

                “Shaping up to be a hell of a storm” She said, and leaned back against the wall of the tavern. “Won’t be surprised if it’s directly overtop us inside the hour.”

                Farra looked up at her in alarm. “Is that safe?”

                Tabris looked down at her in confusion “The storm? Should be. Boat’s probably already at the tower. We’re not going anywhere till it’s over.”

                “But…” Farra replied, and gestured in such a way that she hoped made the _massive discoloured clouds_ and _cracking light and world shaking sound_ more obvious to her companion.

                “What?” Tabris asked, genuinely confused “Never seen a thunderstorm bef-” She came to the realization about halfway through the question. “You’ve never seen a thunderstorm before.”

                “And? Farra challenged “What if I haven’t?”

                Tabris held up her hands placatingly, aware that she had touched a nerve.

                “Like all of _you_ have seen thunderstorms before!” Farra shot at her.

                Tabris looked at her like she was a few threads short of a decent shirt. “Yes. We all have.”

                “We haven’t!” Amell chimed in from across the porch, arm still solidly around Surana’s waist. “Not like this.” Surana twisted around and nodded at Amell’s words.

                “Templars always kept us inside when it rained” Surana said. “Haven’t been out in a storm since before we went to the circle. Not that I can remember that far back. Only one or two of the mages in the circle could, really.”

                Tabris’ face twisted into some sort of medley between pity, alarm and outright disbelief.

                “You-“ She started, paused and then started again. “You two don’t have to stay on the porch.” She said. “I’m not going to stop you from going out in the rain.”

                They looked at her as if she had announced the two of them had dug into shit and found diamonds. Another flash of lightning seemed to spur them into action, Surana hurrying to swing herself around the edge of the porch and down the steps, while Amell simply launched herself _over_ the railing, landing with a giddy whoop in the mud. Surana laughed, and jumped, landing two-footed in same puddle Amell was in, sending a wave of water up over her feet. Farra cautiously extended one hand palm up over the railing, beyond the lip of the porch roof, and only through sheer stubbornness did not yank it back again when she felt the force of the rain pouring off the eves. She didn’t even notice the door opening again behind her.

                “I was wondering where you went.” Leliana said, sitting down next to her on the porch. They’re almost eye-to-eye this way “I’ve always loved thunderstorms .They’re so _romantic_ , don’t you think?”

                “What?” Farra said as she withdrew her hand, and immediately regretted not having something more interesting to say.

                “Don’t you think so?” Leliana asks, and a flash of lightning illuminates her hair briefly from behind, making her look like one of the stained glass windows in the chantry down the hill. “All that _electricity_ , and _energy_. Not to mention all the best stories end in storms!”

                “Oh?” Brosca says. Most of the stories she knows end in ‘and so the caste system is flawless, praise the ancestors’, or, alternately, ‘and then I shanked the fucker’. Leliana’s stories are, in her opinion, leaps and bounds above any she heard told in Orzammar.

                “Oh yes!” Leliana exclaims “Tearful reunions! Grand battles! Ghastly betrayal!” She slid a sly look at Brosca that would have turned her knees to jelly, were she not leaning against a railing “First kisses, even. _Everything_ is more exciting in a storm.”

                From in front of them in the storm comes a shriek; Surana had grabbed Amell, and pulled her into a wild spin, both of them laughing all the while. Farra watches them stumble, collapse into each other, and she isn’t _sure_ , between the rain and the angle, but she’s pretty sure they’re kissing in the mud. Leliana makes a happy noise beside her. Farra turns away from the storm and the mages in it to look back at Leliana. The look of pure joy on her face makes Farra sit down beside her, tucking her feet under her ass to keep her shoes from getting wet. Their hands are just inches away from each other on the wooden porch.

                “I guess I can see the appeal” Farra says, and the jolt that goes through her as Leliana’s fingers touch her own is at least as powerful as any of the bolts of lightning over Lake Calenhad. Weather like this, she thinks as Leliana wove her pinky together with her own, she could get used to.


	2. Caste[less]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tabris has a job for Brosca. Brosca has some objections.

“Oh, real _fucking_ funny, Tabris” Farra ground out.

Adenine Tabris blinked back at her, a good impression of confusion on her features.

                “Send the _brand_ to sell our castoffs to the merchants, that’s a _great_ fucking idea.” She huffed, and stuffed a pair of socks into her traveling pack with so much force they nearly came out the bottom.

                “You seem to know how that all works” Tabris said to her “I saw you teaching Surana about buying supplies. You can count your change in a heartbeat. I trust you more than Aeducan or Cousland, in catching merchants with their thumbs on the scales-“

She felt an ugly burst of laughter tear itself from her throat.

“You want me to accuse merchants of ripping us off?” Farra said incredulously “Fucksake, Adenine, if you wanted me dead there are easier ways.”

                Adenine scrubbed a hand over her face. “Farra, they won’t talk to me. To elves. Most merchants won’t. I just need someone to pawn our old gear so we have enough for supplies for the road. And I like you. I do.  But if I send anyone else to do this we’re going to end up shortchanged a sovereign and a half and we do not have that kind of money to spare. I’ll send Cousland or Aeddcan out if I have to, but please don’t make me.”

“What the fuck do you care what _I_ think.” Farra said “You’re the damn boss around here.”

“Farra, in case you haven’t noticed, this whole operation is held together by a string and a prayer right now.” Adenine shot back, and all of a sudden she looks less like Beraht, collected put together with dozens of lives at her fingertips, and more like the dwarf who led the carta before his takeover. Farra remembers how she looked in the final weeks before Beraht’s coup, desperately trying to keep her footing on loose sand and slowly realizing she was surrounded by old friends sharpening their blades to lodge in her back.   “I’m only the boss because no one else is _fucking saying anything._ You have a better plan? _Great_. Let’s hear it. Because what I know is that we need to get from here halfway across the blighted country and the only merchant we’ve passed in a week and a half _will not trade with me_ and we need arrows and fishing line trap triggers and a hundred other things we barely have the coin for and I _don’t trust anyone else to do it_ and this is the only idea I have. _Please_ , Farra.”

                “Even if I wanted to” Farra said “There’s not a nug’s-ass chance they’ll be willing to trade with _me._ I’m not merchant guild. It’s illegal for me to sell drippings from a bed pan, let alone actual armour. You can bet your ass that any _legitimate_ merchant knows it too. Best case scenario is we get a pair of silver to rub together, worst is they kick my ass, take our stuff, and report me for illegal activity.”

                “…What do you mean ‘illegal’” Adenine said.

                “Word grow new meanings when I wasn’t looking?” Farra said “Only merchant-class get to sell shit, and impersonating a higher caste is skin-you-alive illegal. If they’re black market, under-the-table types, I might have more luck, but they know I can’t go anywhere else, and then we’re back to the two silver problem.”

                “I-“ Adenine started “Is Orzammar really like that?”

                “Never going back” Farra confirmed

                “Tell you what, though,” Adenine said thoughtfully “Bet those merchants have never been. Humans with contacts in Amaranthine, Highever and Highmount? Probably never been to the other side of Lake Calenhad. Bet they couldn’t tell the difference between you and Aeducan at two paces. You could tell them you were heir to the throne and they’d believe you.”

                “You think so? Not just jerking me off?” Farra asked.

                Adenine shrugged. “Most humans are hopeless telling not-humans apart. I got mistaken for Surana by a general at Ostagar.”

                Farra looked at her. Pale where Surana was dark, short choppy brown hair instead of long black braids, three inches shorter than the mage and a warrior besides.

                “You’re fucking with me.” She concluded.

                Adenine shrugged. “Shem see the ears and stop there. And then it’s just ‘Hey elf, cast a fireball’, never mind that she wasn’t anywhere near me. Worth a shot thinking it’s the same with dwarves.”

                “So you think those two aren’t going to notice the nasty fucking brand that takes up half my face? I always thought it was kind of hard to miss, myself.”

                “Notice? Probably.” Adenine conceded. “Recognise?” she shrugged again “Probably not. You could just say you fell into a campfire as a kid or something, even if they ask about it.”

                She was definitely fucking with her, Farra thought grimly. But shit, what the boss wants, the boss gets, or so help them all. The surface wasn’t that different than Orzammar.

                “Fine.” She bit out. “Give me what we have to get rid of.”

                Adenine’s shoulders sank in relief, and she handed Farra a sturdy canvas sack. Farra yanked it from her hand and spun to walk away, towards the pair of travelling merchants set up by the side of the road cursing the whole way.

                She had dealt with bosses like this before. Dust town was full of dwarves looking to make sure they were at the top of the trash heap. Desperate to make sure they were one half-inch above the other brands, never mind that no casted dwarf gave a nug’s ass about who was a cleaner crew and who was a carta thug and which duster owned the carta’s trade network on any given month. It was a variety of assholery that Farra knew well; Beraht was the type to make the dwarves under his command do meaningless tasks, or demeaning ones just to remind them who was in charge. Void, her own _mother_ had been the same, desperate to be in control of her own children if nothing else.

                It wasn’t an endearing quality in a leader, but it was one Farra knew how to survive. If Adenine said ‘jump’, she’d say ‘how high’. If she said ‘sell these to that merchant over there’, that’s what Farra was going to do, and she’d take her lumps and be happy about it.

                The lying was more of a concern, but one Farra could deal with later. She didn’t have any obvious tells, but if she was going to tell tales as big as ‘merchants won’t recognise a brand’ just to jerk Farra around, there was no telling what she would say if her own skin was on the line. She steeled herself, and pulled the sack off her shoulder as she approached the pair of humans and their travelling cart. She could take the blows, roll with the punches, and then they’d all be on the road again. They’d have a laugh at her expense, Farra would prove that she was loyal and could take a hit, Adenine would prove that she was wagging the biggest dick, and they could all move on. Farra had survived worse. She knew she could take this too.

                Farra could feel Adenine eyes on her as she waved to the merchants, and pulled the sack open to display the array of blades and cheap jewelry inside.

                “What’s this, dwarf?” The first merchant said.

                “Swords and finery” Farra said. “All for sale, or trade.”

                The man fished one sword out of the bag, and sighted down its fuller. “Fine make” he agreed grudgingly. “Steel. Mostly undamaged. Aligned properly.”

                “And more where that’s from” Farra agreed. “And jewelry besides.”

                The merchant narrowed one of his eyes at her, and Brosca angled her face slightly, so she’d catch the blow on the side of her face the brand lay, on scar tissue and deadened nerves instead of in her good eye and working ear.

                “Direct from Orzammar?” The merchant asked.

                “What?” Brosca said

                “These blades. Have you brought them straight from Orzammar?”

                “Oh. Uh, no.” Brosca said, relaxing fractionally, and turning her good ear back towards the conversation. “No, I traded for most of them in, uh, Lothering. Human make.”

                The merchant hummed. “Shame. May I take a look at the rest of your wares?”

                Farra wordlessly shook out the sack, depositing its contents across the surface of the man’s trading table. He picked up piece after piece, holding them to the light and examining them carefully.

                “Not a bad stock” he finially admitted, and then did some quick calculations in a small notebook. “This is what I can offer you for the lot.” He said, pointing to a figure written at the bottom of the page, and underlined twice. Brosca took the book for herself and examined it

                “Are you joking?” Farra said, before she could stop herself, slapping the page for emphasis “That would cover the swords alone, and you don’t even _have_ a price for the daggers marked here.”

                The merchant smiled at her, oily as any she had known in Orzammar “Ah, my mistake, if I could just-?” He took the book and made a few quick adjustments. “How does this price find you?”

                She took the book again, and they were off to the races.

***

                “Ah!” Adenine looked up as Farra returned “Do alright?”

                Farra tossed a sizable coin purse at her, revelling slightly in the surprise in Adenine’s eyes as she took in its weight.

                “Better than I expected.” She says, and allows herself to answer Adenine's grin with one of her own.

***

                Sometimes, when she tells the others stories about growing up, they stare at her with horror. Or worse, with pity, as if she was something to be protected and locked away, as though she was some delicate trinket that would break if they so much as looked at her wrong, as if the very stories she's telling don't prove she's survived rougher. They are not even stories about things Farra thinks are revelations, mostly. It was a conversation she struck up very casually with Adenine on the road; about childhoods spent catching rats, and watery drawn-out stews and perpetual gnawing hunger, and she's laughing at Adenine's story of a hungry summer spent trying to filch scraps of tavern tables when she catches Cousland’s eye and freezes. He has stopped dead in the road, and is staring at the two of them like they’ve never met before. Beside her, Tabris stiffens and draws herself up, and Farra realises she recognises that look. She’s worn it often enough. It’s a look that reads ‘what of it’ and ‘just try it’ and ‘you think you’re so much better than me come over here and _prove it_ , huh, some over here and _prove it_ ’ and it’s all bared teeth and hands-on-blades, and back-ally brawls and bloody teeth and split knuckles and _holy shit_ Farra _knows_ this.

                And then Zevran passes by, all laughter and deliberately insinuates himself between Cousland and Tabris and with a jolt Farra realises she knows this too. She knows this, saw her sister do this too many times to be comfortable, watched her slide between two people about to erupt into violence, making gentle promises and hands on shoulders and carefully inserting a body neither person wants to hurt between them. With Zevran’s interference, she can feel Adenine sink beside her. Watches the aggressive, confrontational tack-spitting elf beside her melt back into the negotiator and commander they’ve all come to rely on. Watches the prickly front fall off her like so much soot off a coat. Envies her the ability to leave it behind her, that she’s found another coat to wear, and can’t help the brief stab of betrayal that Adenine, who grew up poor and can’t sell to half the merchants they find, who has trouble ordering drinks in bars, who watched vendors spit in her food and ate it with a shrug anyway can put that to one side, where Farra’s been carting it around like so much reeking, undisposable rot.

                She wonders if she’ll ever be able to leave it behind, even on the surface, where people look at her and see her stature first, and then her armour and then her warden status and her gender and her scruffy half-beard before they see her brand, if they ever do. Wonders if she’s ever going to stop her old habits; of squirrelling away unattended food and angling herself to catch blows if they’re coming in the ear that’s deaf already. If she'll ever stop suspecting everyone she meets of being either another duster who would happily stomp her face into the dust in order to get the slightest inch ahead or of being the rich, unaccountable drunks slumming with the only people they were sure wouldn’t report them to the guards. She didn’t understand the mage’s and wariness of the rest of them until she realised that they saw the rest of group in the way she used to see the merchants who came to Dusttown drunk; potentially a windfall, but far likely to lash out and injure someone before the night was done, able to do damn near whatever the fuck they wanted without ever facing the consequences for it.

                That Farra was, to the two of them, someone they needed to fear implicitly was an idea she needed several days to process. She’d had people scared before, sure. She was (and on some level, still was) a thug, running errands for the Carta. But that was different. People were scared of her because of what she did, and mostly afraid of who she did it for. They were never, not once, afraid because they were something she was not.

                She had wondered, once, why Surrana had so determinedly made herself useful, taking notes and drawing maps and learning to cook and clean and heal and throwing herself at whatever problems the wardens were facing with sheer, bloody-minded force of will until she had on more than one occasion been forced to take a rest to keep her from passing out from exhaustion. The double-blow of elf and mage both had set her behind in ways that Farra honestly couldn't wrap her head around completely. Although she, like Tabris, was slowly stopping her old tricks. Less and less Farra caught her ducking whenever someone raised a hand, or flinching whenever someone in plate mail approached her, and even Amell's winning diplomatic smile was more and more reserved for strangers, using a smaller more crooked one among the wardens alone.  

                But Farra was stuck in the same rut she had been in since she left Orzammar. Here she fucking was, suspecting people who had never been anything but (if not nice, at least tolerable) of turning on her at any moment with no idea of how to turn it off. There she fucking was, in between Adenine courting the fucking human heir to the throne and a trio of mages who’d never been outside a single tower in their lives and she was the one who was having trouble trusting the group. She was better than this, _knew_ she could be better than this. But she still checked her bag ritually every night, to account for every scrap of fabric, strand of thread and crumb of food, despite nothing ever going missing. Still squirrelled away food when it was available, resulting in stale crumbs in her bedroll and dried meat in her boots, despite eating better here than she ever had in Orzamar. Still counted every copper in the coinpurse several times a day, despite the fact they had over a dozen _sovereigns_ now. Still wouldn’t check in with Wynne for days after a fight, so no one knew she had been injured, despite everyone else making that their first stop after a battle. Still viewed the other wardens as competition, despite risking their skins for one another over and over and over again, despite the fact that she would do the same for any of them.

                She knew all of this. Saw all of this. And hated herself refusing to adapt maybe more strongly than she had ever hated anyone or anything before in her life. And still, she _can't change a damn bit of it_. Not while it's still useful. Not yet. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops, two in the morning on friday still technically counts as part of 'this week', right? Anyway, hope you enjoyed Brosca-has-justifiable-issues-with-authority.fic, next one will go up wednesday/thursday, probably, depending on my work and life schedule. 
> 
> As always, hmu if there's something you think would be neat to see here. Until next time!


	3. Fish, friends and freedom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which I have a number of headcanons about fish, apparently, and I play fast and loose with game chronology as it applies to the weather.

 

                “What _are_ those?” Farra asked, gesturing at the line Mahariel was resting on one shoulder.

                “Trout!” He replied happily, slinging the line off his shoulder and letting the bodies hanging from it hit the river stone with a wet slap. He pulled one of them carefully off the line and set to work gutting it with his hunting knife. Farra stared at the line of bright, colourful, fish splayed out over the rock. The fish stared back.

                “What kind of fish have eyes?” Farra said, restraining the urge to push them off the rock to the other side, or at least turn them around to stop them looking at her.

                “Most of them?” Mahariel said as he looked up, fingers still buried in a trout’s belly. “At least, all the ones that I’ve seen. There are eyeless fish where you come from?”

                “Sure” she replied, taking a seat on the other side of the rock Mahariel was using as a cleaning station. “we pulled ‘em up sometimes in well water. You could see right through em if you held them up to the light. ‘Bout this big” She held her thumb and index finger apart, indicating a size about a third as long as any of the fish Mahariel had caught with a bit of twine and an old nail.

                “Good eating on those?” Mahariel asked, ever practical.

                “Hey, a free meal is a free meal” She saw Mahariel nod in agreement before he returned to his work “We just stuffed em all in a pot and boiled em till they fell off the bone. With lichen or mushrooms, when we could get our hands on em. Kinda mealy, but better than nug, and cheaper too.”

                “You just boiled them?”

                “You cook em any other way and the smell stuck around for days” Farra wrinkled her nose at the memory of the tiny two-room hovel she split with her mother and sister, and the intrusive, lingering stench of fish “More trouble than it was worth.”

                “You’re in for a treat then.” He said “A bunch of these, cooked over a green cedar fire? I think we even have some garlic left over to pack them with. Way better than boiled fish.” He pulled a grimace, the coloured lines decorating his face pulling into wrinkes around his mouth and brow on otherwise young features. “We only really did that in winter, with dried fish, and it was always gross. All thick and oily. I don’t think it would be much better with fresh fish.”

                “Nah, I don’t think it would be.” Farra pulled one of her boots of with some effort, and dipped her bare toes in the water. It was colder than she expected, and she could feel the current. “Garlic and whatever sounds like a better mix for it than deep mushrooms though. Damn things were always slimy.”

                “It’s nearly morel season” he said, setting his knife down to wash his hands off in the river, thankfully downstream of her dangling toes. “They’re slimy too, but worth it. We can dry them out over the fire, or cook them in elk fat.”

                Farra laughed “Cook them in fat!” Mahariel frowned sharply up at her from where he was washing his hands. “No, sorry” She continued “it’s just I don’t think anyone in Dust town would have thought of cooking something in fat. None of the meat had enough on it to bother with spares, and even if someone had the thought.”

                Mahariel stared at her a moment, and then made a pleased little ‘huh’ in the back of his throat.  Farra narrowed her eyes at him.

                “What?”

                “I think” He said “That’s the first time you’ve talked about Dust Town without saying ‘we’.”

                “What? Not a chance.” Farra dropped her gaze to her toes in the water as she thought about it “I say shit about Dusters all the time.”

                “But it’s always ‘us dusters’, or you say something you’ve done.” Mahariel said. “You’ve never excluded yourself from them before.”

                “I’m not excluding myself!” Farra exclaimed “I can’t _forget_ I’m a brand and neither will anyone else! Ever! It’s just-“

                “Not the most important thing about you right now.”

                “Right.” She agreed. “Wait, no. Sort of? Why do you care, anyway?”

                “It’s not something that holds weight outside of Orzammar. Aren’t you happy about that?”

                “Course I am.” Farra scouwled down at her bare feet in the water, at the gnarled scar that wrapped around one leg she got long before joining the wardens “I can order drinks in a tavern without having to threaten the barkeep . Walk through a town on the main streets while it’s still light out. Talk without having to worry about someone clubbing me around the back of the head for being lippy. I’m fucking ecstatic to be out. If I had it my way, I’d never go back. But it’s not like I didn’t live there. Not like I didn’t spend two decades being told the only way I could move up in the world is by getting some nob to knock me up, or by running the carta. Not like I didn’t nearly lose my eye to infection in my brand when I was three. Not like Aeducan still won’t be caught dead in the same room with me, for all that he’s technically an exile too. That shit doesn’t just vanish overnight because I’m not running lyrium for the carta anymore.”

                “No” He agreed, and stretched out his legs beside her in the water. The angry red circles from his tick bite were fading, and she could just make out the bump on one of his shins that was the only sign of a long-ago broken leg. “And it’s not going to. But it's not overnight now. We’ve been wardens for months. I’ve missed two holidays, since I’ve been gone. I haven’t spoken to another Dalish elf since I left my clan. I can't even speak elvish to the elves we are travelling with.I’m travelling with a bunch of shemlen –including a Templar- and mages who aren’t keepers. Mages who have no idea what they’re doing, except that they’re happy to be out of their tower.”

                “Are you going somewhere with this?”

                Mahariel shrugged. “You’re not alone out here, that’s all. Creators know I don’t know what I’m doing here. I was a hunter with my clan and now I’m a hunter with the Wardens. When this is over, I’m going to go back to being a hunter with the Dalish again. If you’re not going back to Dust Town, after all this, what are you going to do?”

                Farra paused, and then swung her feet out of the water and brought them down with a splash that dampened the hem of her pants, rolled above the knee. “I dunno. Haven’t thought that far ahead.”

“Yet” Mahariel said.

“Yeah, I guess that’s fair” Farra said. “I dunno what I’m going to do yet.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Food notes! When is trout season in relation to morel season? Morels are like, late spring, right? who knows. Regardless, if you have not had the chance to have fish cooked on a cedar plank, I highly recommend it. Most recipes I've seen recommend frying Morels in regular butter, but doing it in fat seems pretty good too. The only acceptable fish soup is cream-based chowder, and I will fight anyone who says otherwise.
> 
> Assorted other notes: Mahariel is recovering from Lyme disease, which he contracted, recognised, and immediately brought to Wynne. I figure it's a common enough problem among a people who spend a lot of time with fantasy-deer, so he would know it. Farra's nasty-ass scar is from getting a foot caught in a bear trap on a carta mission. 
> 
> Also, I have like, zero shifts this week, so expect another update on friday, probably? who knows.


	4. 5: The Chant and The Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Farra finds the maker, an amulet, and a chantry service.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all, this chapter has a bunch of religious stuff in it. Farra is a faithful character, eventually, and so it's covered in this chapter (and probably the next two, if I'm being honest) from the perspective of a believer. Just a heads up, if that sort of thing makes you uncomfortable.

         Farra had been inside chantries before, was the thing. In Lothering and Redcliffe both, the wardens had to do business with and inside the chantry, and she had been inside both of the buildings. They weren’t like this though. Lothering was full of refugees, people sleeping in the pews, desperate and dirty and half dead from the taint and darkspawn already, and the building emanated nothing so much as frantic desperation. In Redcliffe, the chantry doors were barricades; bookshelves torn down to brace across the thick wooden beams, and the stench of burning bodies outside mingling oily with the incense in the building itself. The light of day only showed what had been lost, windows broken and boarded up, cooking fires burning in alcoves that once held shrines and relics. Both buildings were filled with desperation and blood, and didn’t resemble holy spaces as much as they did ramshackle disaster relief centres.

         From the stories Leliana tells of the grand cathedral in Val Royaux, there is something that has been missing from her experiences. Leliana could spin words to make shit shine is the thing, so Farra’s not sure how far she can trust something she describes with such adoration. She can practically see the gilded halls when Leliana speaks of them, can practically feel the smoke on her skin and the stone on her feet. She almost doesn’t believe it, but for the look in Leliana’s eyes. It’s wistful, yes, but it’s not the look she gets when she’s spinning stories. She’s not checking to see how Farra’s reacting (as if she would ever be anything but happy to hear them), her eyes are focused off somewhere in middle distance and she is _remembering_ , not creating. There is such reverence, such softness in her voice when she speaks about the Maker and Andraste, about the Revered Mother who took her in. She turns that same gaze on Farra, full of forgivness and recovery and it is so powerful that Farra almost believes, when it’s late at night and everyone else is asleep, that she might someday have a role in a place like that. But the fact remains; she is and always will be a thug, foul mouthed and short tempered, and a dwarf besides. The chantries she’s seen so far, she understands. Desperate times make shelters out of anything sturdy and vaguely upright, and she can understand the faithful there, congregating against a threat they cannot face. Could even see herself amoung them, dirty faced and desperate, taking handouts and moral lessons from the sisters.

         The chantry in Denerim is not like those.  Farra had half expected it to be the same, is the thing. Not quite, but she certainly didn’t expect the purity of the space within, or the glory of the cathedral itself. They were there simply looking for records, and as she walked through the door she was struck dumb. The space _soared_ in front of her, opening like an embrace. Pillars of stone, impossibly thin, even by dwarven standards grew out of the pillars and spread gently across the ceiling, a spiderweb of masonry. The light inside was all filtered through tinted glass, making the air thick and golden, the incense smoke drifting lazily from the censers dyed as many soft shades of pink and gold as noblewoman’s gown. The light danced across the open space, and this may have been the first time in a stone building that she does not feel the oppressive weight of it pressing down upon her. But more than that, more than any of that, was the music.

         They had entered the building in the middle of a service, and subsequently, in the middle of a recitation of the Chant. The choir, at the front, was more than two dozen people singing of Andraste on the pyre, and every single one of those voices was pitch perfect, weaving in and out of each other with incredible grace. And then, and then, someone must have given a cue, because the music was no longer coming just from the front of the church, but from the every member of the congregation. More than a hundred, two hundred voices raised together in song. She can just barely track Leliana’s lilting chirrup beside on her right, and Alistairs deep rumble on her left, and the rest of the voices were lost to the noise. There was music everywhere, and it was as all encompassing, and warmly embracing as the incense and the light of the church, and just as all consuming.

         She could feel it, the music and the light beating franticly just on the other side of her sternum practically aching with the power of the music, and she felt as though she might be pulled straight off her feet into the rafters. This, she thought to herself, watching blue and gold light slide from plane to plane on Leliana’s face as she sang, must be what people meant when they said they were enraptured. In this moment, she could truly, utterly believe that when this song was sung from the four corners of the map, it would cause the maker himself to return to the world.

         In that moment, she could feel what inspired hundreds of thousands of people to take up arms and fight for a maker that had abandoned them, to launch exalted marches against any that would oppose them, for in this moment, in this cathedral, with these believers, how could they fail? What force, below or beyond the world could stand a chance when faced with this? She understood, with a lurch, why the militia in Redcliffe had asked for holy protection for their siege, why they had thought that pieces of pewter imbued them with protection against forces beyond their reckoning.

         In that moment, she even fancied she understood why the maker had fallen in love with his bride; if her voice had been half as beautiful as the music in this chantry, she would have moved heaven and earth to find its source too.

         As the song ended, Farra fumbled for the sunburst amulet around her throat. It was intended, at one point, as a gift for Leliana, who had insisted that she keep it. She stares at it, and the steel glints back at her, slightly tarnished and cold as ever. Steel was simply steel, on a braided leather cord above her tunic, hidden below her chain mail. Leliana had tucked it in this morning, kissing it before tucking it ‘between the clothes but above the heart, to protect you from all manner of things.’ It was only steel in the same way that the ring Tabris wore around her neck was just a piece of jewelry, or the way that the book Mahariel retrieved for Morrigan was just paper and ink. If it had ever been just that, just a piece of steel on a cord, cheaply stamped and punched with the symbol of the Maker’s light, it was more than that now.

         Light had come to her at last. She had gone into it from the dark, and it had been piercing and painful, and finally cleansing. The light of the sun, the light of the surface, even amoungst the darkness of the blight, was a bigger blessing than she could have imagined six months ago. She had clawed her way bloody out of the dark, and found, incredibly, that the light had only been waiting for her all this time. She would, she thought as she gripped the amulet tightly, never return to the person she once was, _For there is no darkness in the Maker's Light,_ and if there was anything she was sure of, it's that she was never going back to the dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There she is! This chapter really did not co-operate with me, the first time I sat down to write it I cranked out about 400 words that now live at the end of chapter two. whoops. You can go read those if you like, for another third of an update. 
> 
> On the menu next time is sheer unadulterated fluff, I promise.


	5. Leliana

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Of all the things Farra expected to find on the surface, Leliana was not one of them.

It may have been romantic to say that they had fallen in love at first sight, like the characters in so many of Leliana’s tales, and Leliana herself had started to speak of it that way, but it had started simply as any other did. The foundations of it, at its most basic, were simply smiles and easy flirting, gentler and more playful that any Farra had done before. Half joking advances, each of them, or so Farra thought, simply testing the waters, seeing if there was a possibility of fumble or two on the road. Somewhere along the way they had become earnest, and now Farra couldn’t imagine life without her. In the days before the Landsmeet, Farra found herself seeking her out more and more, simply to spend time by her side, to continue mixing poisons and fixing leghold traps and oiling armour in her company.

It was on one of these, if not relaxed than at least not imminently deadly, days that Leliana asked her what she planned to do after the blight was over. Farra put down the small spring she was bending back into shape to look Leliana right in her face

“I want to go wherever you are.” She said, trying to inject her voice with as much earnestness as possible.

“Me?” Leliana exclaimed in surprise “I am not the grey warden, of the two of us. I have no call or cause to answer. I was going to go wherever you were!”

“Really?” Farra said “You have no plans for when all this is over?”

“Well, I was going to go to the Lothering chantry, briefly. I left in rather a hurry, if you recall, and there are loose ends there to tie up, if I can.”

Farra thought of the town, so many months behind them. Small, if she remembered correctly, but it seemed as though it would be pleasant enough, once cleared of darkspawn and dead. Dull, but she could see herself living there, if Leliana was by her side.

“You’ll be staying there then?”

“Not for long” Leliana said, and Farra felt a quiet pulse of relief. “It was a place of healing, but I am ready to face the world again.”

“Like where?” Farra asked, before she had even thought about it “Will you go back to Orlais, now that Marjolane is dead?”

“Oh, perhaps. There is no city quite like Val Royaux, after all. I would be quite happy to see it again. And with you by my side, this time!”

“I-“ Farra has to stop, and starting again takes more effort than she’s willing to admit. “You’d have me with you? Even though you could go alone?”

Leliana smiled up at her, playfully. “And why would I want to do that, when I could have you there with me instead?”

“But-“ The protest was rolling out of her mouth before she could stop it, somewhere inside her head she could hear herself screaming to just take the life that Leliana was offering her and just run with it, just _run and never look back_ \- “Me? Really? Leliana, I’m nothing special. I’m a thief and a thug and Warden, and I’m going to take a dirt nap with some putrid company well before my time. Possibly as soon as the archdemon rears its head tomorrow. And you’re-“ Beautiful, she wanted to say. Too good for that. A sister, and a storyteller, with a voice like a songbird and a crack shot with a bow, and fine taste in shoes and wine and deserving of much, much more than Farra could ever give her.

 “You deserve better.” She said at last, “Some girl who can treat you right.”

Leliana made a soft noise in the back of her throat. “Is that what you think of me?” Her voice was so quiet, soft and wounded, that Farra almost thought she had imagined it “That I would leave you behind simply because you have a complicated life?” She placed her bow gently on the table and took Farra’s gnarled scarred hands in her own long boned delicate ones. “Farra. You are the first thing I see in the morning. The last thing I see at night. I don’t want that to change. Don’t speak that way. To be separated from you would be a burden, a wound. I could not bear it.”

“Still” Farra said “Still. We’re-the wardens are in danger here, Leliana. There are only the few of us, against the entire blight. There’s no guarantee we’ll all be coming out the other side. Maybe-“ She chokes up a little, and tries to push down the sudden roughness in her voice as she continues “Maybe that would be better for you. If I-“

“Don’t!” Leliana’s voice is all lightness and warmth, but there is iron underneath, as she reaches up to cup Farra’s cheek. “Don’t speak like that. We will get through this. We will prevail, you will see. This will all turn out alright in the end.” She guides Farra down into a long, soft kiss, all lips and pressure.

“You will prevail” Leliana repeats, resting her forehead lightly against Farra’s own. “You will prevail, and then we will escape together, for a time. I shall show you the sights of Orlais, and we will eat fine food, and good wine, and then, and only then, will we think about what comes after.”

Farra placed one of her hands on top of Leliana’s bracketing her own face. “Sounds sorta like a honeymoon, Lei.”

Leliana hummed softly. “Perhaps it is. Or, will be, rather. What do you say?”

“Are you- Are you proposing to me, right now?”

“I suppose I am.” Leliana’s smile was slow, gentle, but full of mischief and promise nonetheless. “What do you say? I know a few mothers who would be willing to perform the ceremony, even with a blight on. I could find a pair of gowns in Denerim, I am sure. Even one in your size shouldn’t be too difficult to track down. We could do this as soon as tomorrow, if you liked.”

Farra couldn’t speak, suddenly, through the lump in her throat. She settled for thumping her forehead back against Leliana’s, and choking out a sound that was either a laugh or a sob. She struggled to regain her composure. She hoped it wasn't too long before she opened her eyes to look Leliana in the eyes again.

“I bet you Alistair cries” She finally managed.

Leliana chuckled into her hair, and rubbed her back gently.

“I won’t hold that against him” Leliana said “I rather suspect I will too. I always was a soft touch for happy endings.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there ends the 5 things! All that's left is the +1, which is going to be... decidedly less fluffy than the last few chapters have been. Nearing the end of this adventure though, and I'd like to thank all of you for sticking it out with me, it's been a wild ride.


	6. But Orzammar's the same

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Returning to Orzammar was never going to be easy, for any of them.

               As the light faded from Leske’s eyes, she didn’t blame him. As he slumped on her daggers, dropping his own blades, she didn’t think about the clumsy way he flirted with her sister, or the dry gallows humor they shared. As she pulled her daggers out of his chest, in the armour chink below the armpit that she had showed him, she does not think about drinks they shared, or days they spent together, or jobs they ran. She does not think about what led him to Javira, after she left for the surface, or the easy, nothing-has-changed way he greeted her in the square. She doesn’t let herself think of his instant support when she proposed taking over the carta when she killed Beraht, or about the first mission they ran for the Carta, kids too big and ugly to be begging for coins in the commons. All she can think, standing over the body of her oldest friend, is that she hates knowing with absolute rock-solid certainty that she would have done the same in his place.

               She realized that the sounds of battle have stopped, around her. Cousland stood over Javira’s body, cleaning his own daggers. She wonders, if Duncan hadn't recruited her, if he would be cleaning her blood off his daggers, instead of Javira's. Someone is at her side; Aeducan, she realizes, as he clapped a hand on her shoulder.

               “You can’t blame yourself” He said, wiping sweat from his forehead. “It’s not your fault. You can’t expect honour from-“

               She spun, fist clenched, and broke his noble fucking nose.

               “From _who_ , Aeducan?” She spat at him, as he clutched his face on the ground “Finish that fucking sentence, I _dare_ you.”

               He was staring up at her with wide eyes as she drew her dagger. She pointed it at him with all the thuggishness she could muster, all bared teeth and wide shoulders, pulled all the Dusttown she could into her accent as she said

               “Finish the fucking sentence, princeling.”

               “…From the casteless” He said. He must have seen her grip tighten on her dagger, because the words were barely out of his mouth before he rushed to add “You are the exception! Unlike any I have ever met!

               “And you met a lot of fucking casteless before, have you?” She was aware that she was yelling, that the rest of the wardens and their companions were staring. She couldn’t care less. Let them see what Orzammar was really like “Made a lot of friends of us, have you, slumming it in dust town? You knock up some girl like my sister I don’t know about, bring her up to the diamond quarter to have your bastard? What do you think of me, when you look at me, huh? Am a thug or a noble hunter?”

               “Farra, you are a friend!”

               Her laugh was ugly, as she sheathed her dagger. “Is that why you won’t fucking _touch_ me, Prince Aeducan? Because we’re _friends_? You _respect_ me too much to eat out of the same bowl as me? To get anywhere near me during a fight?”

               He looked like she had punched him again.

               “I only-“

               “You only what?” She spat “Insulted everyone I ever grew up with? Still think I can’t fight, that I shouldn’t be _allowed_ to fight? Because I’m a fucking _brand?_ You still think I’m not worth the stone I stand on, despite proving twice, _twice_ that I’m a better fighter than anything that the warrior castes ever produced.” She snorted “Provings are only the ancestor’s will when it’s you fuckers winning, is that it? Otherwise its casteless shit-disturbers and cheats, is that how it is?”

               “The ancestors-“

               “Fuck an ancestor!” Her rage was building again, she could feel it hot and poisonous in her veins as acid “What’s an ancestor ever done for me, huh? All my ancestors ever did was get caught stealing, and look where that fucking got me! Why the _fuck_ should I respect the piece of shit who got my family into Dusttown in the first place!”

                “Brosca-“

                “Don’t you fucking ‘Brosca’ me, princeling.” She snarled “You don’t have the first fucking _idea_ what it’s like living here. Not a fucking _clue_. You said I’m _different_ than the rest of the dusters, huh? That I’m better, somehow? That I’m so fucking _special_ that you can afford to associate with me?”

                She flung her arms wide, indicating the room around them; the shabby bloodstained headquarters of the carta, bodies still cooling on the floor, at the piles of rusted weaponry and nuggets of lyrium.

                “This is it!” She said “This is who I am! This, This room, Javira dead, that’s what I wanted! I’m a thug and a thief, Aeducan, and I had daydreams of running the Carta! I am _exactly_ like every other duster down here, the only difference is that I got out. I don’t have any fucking _honour_. I don’t give two shits about the _stone_. I am a casteless brand, Aeducan, and no amount of fucking _respect_ or _friendship_ from you is going to change the fact that I’m everything your mother ever warned you about.”

                She spat at his feet.

                “Come on then.” She said “We’ll go and get your precious fucking _paragon_. We’ll put your _good friend_ Harrowmont on the throne. I’ll sit back, and play nice, like a good little pet, and we can get our troops and go. But I want to make one thing very clear, Aeducan.”

                She knelt in front of him, where he still sprawled on the floor. “I’ve always said I’d never come back here. But I’m making one exception, and one exception only.” She glared at him, at his nervous eyes darting back and forth across her face, at the blood dripping down his chin onto a shirt that cost more than her mother had ever made.

                “I’m going to come back” She said “And I’m going to check on my Nephew. On my sister. And on the rest of the casteless still in Dusttown. And Princeling, if this aint better, if my sister’s out on her ass, If my drunken wretch of a mother isn’t still taking advantage of the royal stores- I’m going to sneak into your sodding palace and slit your throat. I’ll feel real bad about it. Lose sleep over it for the rest of my life. But believe me when I say that if things don’t change, I’ll be the one to send this nug sucking, shitheap of a city into another civil war.”

                She jammed one bloody index finger into his chest plate. “Don’t ever doubt that, Princeling.”

                As she stood up to go, her boots were tacky with Leske’s blood, and she was sure, though she did not turn back to look, that they were leaving a trail behind her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it! This work, and I think potentially this series, is over. I've had a great time writing Farra Brosca, and I hope you've enjoyed reading her too. With thanks to noholds for letting me borrow her shit-stirring, angry, head-over-heels for Leliana finding-Andraste Brosca, this story wouldn't have been the same without you. 
> 
> I might come back to this series eventually, to write some Awakening stuff, but for now, I think this is a good place to end it.
> 
> Thank you all for all your support c:

**Author's Note:**

> Oh man, here it is! Farra Brosca vs the world. I'm really excited to write this, half because Brosca's such a prickly delight to write, and half because I finially get to write the (apparantly highly anticipated? Like, half the comments requested it at one point or another) return to Orzammar feat. the two dwarven wardens.
> 
> Expect updates on this once or twice a week, work permitting. I'm not going to hammer out a proper update schedual because 1) my job is intermittent and unpredictable 2) I am lazy.
> 
> Also, I'm nearing 30 thousand words on this weird AU fic? When did that happen? Thanks for tagging along with me on this adventure.


End file.
